Monday, 3 February 2014

PRA: statement to Regional Planning Interests Bill

Property Rights
Australia supports the intent of the Regional
Planning Interests Bill (RPI) and its approach of how to effectively enforce
the protection of priority agricultural areas (PAA), priority living areas
(PLA) and strategic environmental areas from resource activity. However to be
effective the bill requires many amendments as PRA has covered in detail our submission.
PRA also cannot give a blank cheque approval of the bill when many details will
be in regulation that is yet to be revealed.

The RPI bill
has much power as it overrides various acts including all resource acts, the
Environmental protection act (EPA) and the Water act. PRA is concerned that the
bill is unclear if landowner rights will be lost by the RPI overriding the EPA
and thereby Environmental Authorities that afford protection from the likes of
dust and noise. Also the Water Act where protections are offered by the likes
of ‘make good’ provisions to loss of underground water from coal seam gas
activity.

It’s
important not to lose sight of the big picture; this bill will be in effect for
all of Queensland. The Newman LNP government has a policy aim of doubling
agricultural production by 2040 and for this to be possible full protection
needs to be afforded to the most productive agricultural areas. When you get
right down to what we must protect, it is the better soil types; whether it is
currently being cropped or has a future potential for high value agriculture
capable of various commodity production.

This
hearing located in Toowoomba which is on the edge of the Darling Downs
where the high quality cropping land covers a wide area without a break beyond
any individual boundary. This bill has to be also relevant to all parts of Qld
where good soils are often much more fragmented. The soil types will change not
only within a district but also within an individual property.

The Newman
LNP government also sought to support new areas available for high
value agriculture in the reforms to the Vegetation Management Act
especially in the less developed regions far away from the more settled south
east.

“A common maximum of
rural landholders is to develop the best country (that is capable of the
greatest productivity improvement) first. Yet in generally marginalcountry
there can often still be found what I call “pockets of viability” on most
holdings.”

…..”Development of these
zones can often turn a marginal enterprise into an acceptable living area.”

It
is these pockets of viability throughout the state that must also be protected
by an amended ‘workable’ Regional Planning Interests bill

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Crucial in
determining a regional interest for the protection of the best land, living
areas and environmental areas are the various Regional Plans. The PRA
submission details the complexities of the various land classification systems
to be used with the Strategic Cropping Land trigger maps and soil criteria to
be retained from the to be repealed SCL Act alongside the PAA’s as revealed in
the Darling Downs and Central Qld Regional Plans. There is no recognition of
the decades of work by the old Department of Primary Industries and the Lands Department
in the collection of data and the development of the Good
Quality Agricultural Land soil classification system. There is neither any
mention of the expertise of the current Department
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

It is like
retaining a series of old band aids that never quite satisfactory served their
full function. The inadequacies of the PAA’s in the Regional Plans are such
that it makes one nostalgic for the Strategic Cropping Land soil criteria that
PRA was doubtful of its value when introduced.

·That
it refers to an expert committee to recommend a single, straightforward,
cohesive soil classification system to use in the RPI bill to determine a
regional interest.

·All
good quality agricultural land no matter its current use should be considered
as a regional interest; not just land that is currently cropped.

·The
uncertainty of protections afforded to landowners under the EPA and Water acts
be rectified and assurances given that these rights are retained.

·Where
an exemption comes into effect via agreement with the landowner, full
disclosure should be made to the landowner and that the resource company must
be required at completion of the activity to restore the land to full
productive capacity.

·Clause
50 (2) must be amended that it is not automatic that the chief executive “must
give effect” to the recommendations by the accessing agency. PRA fully endorses
the comments made on this point by Peter Shannon on behalf of the Basin
Sustainability Alliance to the hearing.

·That
throughout the bill that it refers not only to owners of the land but also
occupiers and that the definition of owner is amended.

PRA
respectfully asks the committee to refer to the submission for further comment
and recommendations.

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The above was
written from dot points from which I spoke from for the opening statement at
the parliamentary committee hearing in Toowoomba on January 30 2014. It won’t
be an exact copy of what was said but that the transcripts will be made public soon.

2 comments:

The parliamentary committee has handed down its report. Overall they did a good job, however the government is under no obligation to accept the committee's recommendations. A lot of the detail is still unknown as it has been relegated to regulations and they will be tabled at the second reading of the bill.